My Masterpiece
by TereZa95
Summary: Time has passed now. What really happened inside Vermeer's heart? Art and romance mix and bring up some conclusions


It has been long, and just now I am able to reflect upon what happened that dreadful day.

The day I lost my son, the day I lost my muse.

The day I lost part of myself

I have no idea how things managed to get to what they got, for I had been doing the exact same things I had done for over 12 years or more. Wake up, eat, climb the stairs to my studio and enter in my world. There I would mix colors, stand before my subject, painting it or just staring, studying it. There I would spend all day, sometime mixing colors, others reflecting upon the colors of the clouds. However, despite I had quite a large family, I was always alone. No one seemed to have inherited or share my view of the world. For my family, clouds were always white.

Then she came.

Griet was a young maid, or maybe not so young, but I had become used to the twenty-something (nearly thirty) year of Tanneke. But she was intelligent, and willing to help, even when Catharina was in a bad mood, which I had to admit, was often those days. Maybe she sensed it, maybe she had the ability to feel that things were going to change, ability I did not have. Since the moment I first saw her, I knew that there was some brute, virgin artistic talent within her. Not everybody would have chopped the vegetables the way she did

"Colors fight between them" she justified herself. _Indeed, _I thought. Catharina, on the other side, disliked her from that moment, maybe because the whole scenery wasn't her favorite (the house was old, and the kitchen smelled of the dead animals), maybe because she was pregnant, or maybe because I had actually talked to the girl.

Since she worked for us, she drew me closer and closer to her, as if she was a bright, newly discovered diamond, and I the jeweler that was to make a beautiful, perfect necklace with it. I knew I could wok her talent, I knew I could talk with her about things I usually kept to myself. If only she talked more often.

Her wide eyes seemed to relax me; her lips always murmured clever words. Sadly, my wife and Cornelia did not see this, and bullied her in their own way. I was a coward. I did not defend her. I did not talk with Catharina, I knew she would have understood. I could have changed the future. I regret this very much.

Now then, Catharina had her reasons to resent her, for Griet was allowed in the one place she wasn't (she's quite clumsy), and that place was almost my whole world. I had never painted her, despite she was my wife, the woman I most love, despite her temper. She was beautiful, perfect for a muse, but she couldn't sit still. She did not understand this, and I did understand her anger. But then again, I said nothing.

Griet, on the other side, was beautiful too, but not as Catharina or my daughter were: she was an angel. Pure and innocent, she did not seem to notice about other men's interest on her, such as the butcher's son or that filthy Van Riujven until they either told her or it was too late. I was attracted, too, by her, and until this day I cannot tell accurately what my feelings for her were. I even came to think I was in love with my maid. It was funny, because, although my family kept growing (which shows I did not totally forget Catharina), I found myself more and more yearning for the one which I could talk with about my art. I spent and spent more time in the studio, and I would meet more often those wide, brown eyes that seemed to embrace me as angels' wings. She drew me closer, and I foolishly let myself caught on this pure and innocent tornado that would take me God knows where. That was why I was so mysteriously angry when I saw the butcher's son with her; that was why I thought I would burst in flames when the bastard of a patron I have touched her.

Then, I discovered I could paint her. She would sit still, and the light that shone on her face when she cleaned each morning made her glow, seeming even more angelical than what she already was. I became even more protective, even siding with her against my own wife. Again I say, she was a diamond, my diamond. I was sure my Griet would do everything I'd ask her to. I knew she also stirred whenever I was close. Now and then our eyes locked, and I could detect some yearning, even desire, that, although she tried to hide those impure whishes, she could not: I am, after all, an artist, and I can read eyes as I read books.

Painting her was truly delightful, and kind of relieving, because Van Ruijven would not demand her to be in a painting with her if I gave him a portrait of her. I did not want Griet to be another woman in red silk. Not her.

But I found myself wanting to keep the painting. It was a masterpiece, simple and yet complex. I managed to print in a simple flat image a million feelings, a million thoughts. Whatever crossed her mind when she was looking into my soul, I painted it. It soothed and relaxed me as well. And I became obsessed with the artwork

When I found out that she needed to wear the pearl earrings, I did not think much about it. However, it seemed that she had already discovered long before me what the painting had needed all along, and was terrified. I was not. I should have been.

The painting came out beautifully, the evening it was finished not.

I almost cried

And now, I have come to understand everything after the wave of passions that overcame the family this time until now.

I did not love her.

Although she was the other heart that understood the world as I did, although she was beautiful, young and loyal, a great ally in the studio and my friend, I could not picture her perfectly as something else. But, eventhough I ignore her at the market, my eyes still pierce her back, and though she does not know it, I watch her distantly, even when she is with the family she has now forged with the butcher's son. My heart does not ache, but I feel there is something unfinished. Maybe it is the painting.

What had happened to me was what Van Leewoenhoek often had explained me: I loved the art, not the subject. Griet was meant to be my masterpiece, not my wife. Catharina is still there.

I still glance at her when she celebrates the birth feast, and the family keeps growing. Despite her character, she married me even though I was poorer and had nothing to offer her. She is by my side, and tries to keep at bay her sadness and resentment when I go to my studio with my muses and even alone. She is not meant to be there. Griet was, and that made her angry, but I still love her. Although I am not the perfect father, the family is still growing. I would not manage without my wife. I love them all.

And I love my masterpiece as well


End file.
